John Harper (pastor)
John Harper (May 29, 1872 - April 14, 1912) was a British Baptist pastor who died in the Titanic disaster.
Harper personally embraced his parents' Christian faith at age 13 and began preaching at 17. He supported himself in early adulthood by doing manual labor until Baptist pastor E.A. Carter of Baptist Pioneer Mission of London, England, began to aid him in his preaching efforts. He became the first pastor of Paisley Road Baptist Church in Glasgow in 1897. After his death, it was renamed Harper Memorial Baptist Church. Under his care, the church quickly grew from 25 members to over 500 and soon moved to a new location on Plantation Street.
At the time of the Titanic disaster, Harper was a widower with a six-year-old daughter, Annie Jessie (Nana), and the pastor of a London church. He was traveling with his daughter and niece Jessie W. Leitch to Chicago to preach for several weeks at the Moody Church when the ship was lost. His daughter and niece survived, but Harper was lost. Some who survived told that Harper preached the Gospel to the end, converting those in the freezing water after the ship's sinking before dying in it himself.
External Links
Harper Memorial Baptist Church